Asylum

EL PASO - One of his clients, a Mexican waitress and widowed mother of three, says she played dead under a pile of bodies to survive a massacre in Ciudad Juarez led by men she recognized as federal police. Another client says Chihuahua state police hacked off his feet after he refused to pay them bribes. They came to El Paso seeking Carlos Spector, 58, a burly, hard-charging immigration attorney who has developed a strange specialty in this Texas border city. His clients, instead of crossing into the United States illegally and hiding out, are seeking asylum.

Thousands of immigrants seeking protection in the United States have spent months in detention waiting for the government to determine whether they may have legitimate cases, even though regulations say they should receive a determination within 10 days, according to a class-action lawsuit filed Thursday. The lawsuit, which was brought by two California chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Chicago-based National Immigrant Justice Center, claims the government violated the law and needlessly spent tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on detention.

WASHINGTON -- The number of immigrants asking for asylum after illegally entering the United States nearly tripled this year, sending asylum claims to their highest level in two decades and raising concerns that border crossers and members of drug cartels may be filing fraudulent claims to slow their eventual deportation. The tally of those granted temporary asylum jumped from 13,931 to 36,026 in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, according to a report released Thursday by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

Zeituni Onyango, an aunt of President Obama whose bid for asylum in the United States received national attention during her nephew's first campaign for the presidency and contributed to the debate over illegal immigration, died Tuesday in Boston. She was 61. Onyango had been treated in recent months for cancer and respiratory problems, said Cleveland attorney Margaret Wong, who represented Onyango in her immigration case. A half sister of Obama's late father, Onyango moved from Kenya to the U.S. in 2000.

On first reading, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling issued earlier this month seemed absurd: Immigration judges should reconsider whether women from Guatemala constituted a "particular social group" whose members could face persecution simply for being female, in which case they would be eligible for political asylum in the United States. Wait just a minute, we thought. Sure, Guatemala is a horribly violent country, and sure, we believe in providing sanctuary to the truly persecuted whose governments do not protect them.

QUITO, Ecuador - Edward Snowden has requested asylum in Ecuador, the government said Sunday. In a brief comment on his Twitter account, Ecuador's foreign minister, Ricardo Patino, said simply: “The government of Ecuador has received an asylum request from Edward Snowden.” Although Patino gave no indication of whether the government of President Rafael Correa would grant the request, he had said previously that the government would consider...

NSA leaker Edward Snowden has sent out appeals for asylum to six more countries, WikiLeaks reported Friday, in a sign of the marooned fugitive's mounting desperation in the face of international indifference to his plight. Snowden remains trapped in a diplomatic no-man's land at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, lacking documents that would allow him to enter Russia or travel to a country willing to damage relations with Washington to give him refuge. The 30-year-old former contract worker for the National Security Agency has been on the run for more than a month since telling journalists about massive U.S. efforts to track telephone conversations and Internet traffic around the world.

An influential Russian lawmaker on Sunday advised fugitive leaker Edward Snowden to take up Venezuela's offer of asylum, deeming it his "last chance" and cautioning that the leaker of U.S. security secrets can't live at Moscow's airport forever. It was a clear sign from the Kremlin that it has tired of the international standoff over Snowden, the 30-year-old former National Security Agency contractor who disclosed classified information about widespread U.S. surveillance of worldwide telephone and Internet contacts.

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is changing the rules for refugees and asylum seekers in the United States so that people will no longer be barred entry for providing incidental or unintentional support to terrorist organizations. The new definition of what it means to provide “material support” to terrorists comes after years of complaints from human rights advocates that the old rules led to the exclusion of vulnerable refugees who pose no harm. Among those turned away in recent months were a Syrian refugee who paid an opposition group to gain safe passage out of Syria and a farmer who paid tolls to a resistance group to cross a bridge to take his food to market, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

TUCSON -- Most of the “Dream 9” will get the chance to argue their case for asylum before an immigration judge, their attorney says. The five women and four men, who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, staged a brazen protest three weeks ago at the U.S.-Mexico border to draw attention to the thousands of people deported under the Obama administration. When the so-called Dreamers - named for the Dream Act, which would provide them with a path to legalization -- attempted to reenter the U.S. at the Nogales, Ariz., port of entry on July 22, they were arrested.

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is changing the rules for refugees and asylum seekers in the United States so that people will no longer be barred entry for providing incidental or unintentional support to terrorist organizations. The new definition of what it means to provide “material support” to terrorists comes after years of complaints from human rights advocates that the old rules led to the exclusion of vulnerable refugees who pose no harm. Among those turned away in recent months were a Syrian refugee who paid an opposition group to gain safe passage out of Syria and a farmer who paid tolls to a resistance group to cross a bridge to take his food to market, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has published a lengthy "open letter to the people of Brazil," saying he has been inspired by the reaction around the world to his revelations, and lamenting that he can't fully assist the South American nation's investigations into spying without being granted permanent political asylum. "Until a country grants permanent political asylum, the U.S. government will continue to interfere with my ability to speak," he wrote in the letter published by Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo.

He was 10 when the gangsters flung rocks through the windows, and 12 when they beat him black and blue. At 15, a gang member shot at him while he was shopping at a grocery store - and killed his cousin instead. At 17, he left Honduras for the United States. He applied for political asylum, telling a judge that if he returned home, the gang that had slain his father would kill him, too. Now 20, working as a gardener and living with his mother and siblings in Los Angeles, the man is one of a growing number of Central Americans asking for asylum.

WASHINGTON -- The number of immigrants asking for asylum after illegally entering the United States nearly tripled this year, sending asylum claims to their highest level in two decades and raising concerns that border crossers and members of drug cartels may be filing fraudulent claims to slow their eventual deportation. The tally of those granted temporary asylum jumped from 13,931 to 36,026 in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, according to a report released Thursday by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

Gifted and tormented sculptor, involuntary mental patient, enduring symbol of female passion quashed by patriarchal convention - Camille Claudel is nothing if not a rich subject for storytellers. "Camille Claudel 1915," the tough and measured feature by Bruno Dumont, is a very different animal from the high melodrama of the 1988 biopic starring Isabelle Adjani. That's no surprise from a filmmaker who traffics in austerity and a performer, Juliette Binoche, who's ever resistant to the obvious and formulaic.

Legendary Entertainment is expanding its television production repertoire by acquiring Asylum Entertainment, the firm behind the biographical miniseries "The Kennedys. " Legendary, the entertainment company controlled by film producer and financier Thomas Tull, announced Monday it had completed a deal to buy 100% of Asylum Entertainment, a 10-year-old production firm. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. Asylum specializes in unscripted and scripted fare.

July 12, 2013 | By Sergei L. Loiko, This post has been updated. See the note below for details.

MOSCOW -- Edward Snowden, the fugitive leaker who revealed the secret U.S. effort to track phone and Internet communications, told Russian human rights activists and lawyers on Friday that he will seek political asylum in Russia, the state-owned RIA Novosti news service reported. Activist Tanya Lokshina, who attended the meeting with Snowden at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport, told the news service that the former contract worker for the National Security Agency wanted their help petitioning the U.S. and European states not to interfere with his asylum process.

MOSCOW -- Edward Snowden has withdrawn an application for asylum in Russia, apparently deciding that he couldn't abide by President Vladimir Putin's insistence that he stop leaking U.S. secrets, a Kremlin spokesman said Tuesday. “True, Snowden did voice a request [to be allowed] to stay in Russia,” presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “At the same time, having found out yesterday about Russia's position outlined by President Putin ... he rejected his intention and his request to get a chance to stay in Russia.” The Kremlin spokesman reiterated Putin's position, announced Monday, that the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor must stop activities "aimed at damaging our American partners" if he wanted to be granted asylum in Russia.

Fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden's offer to testify in Germany about controversial U.S. surveillance programs drew a swift warning from the Kremlin on Friday that he would lose his Russian asylum if he travels abroad or discloses U.S. intelligence secrets while in Russia. In an open letter made public Friday in Berlin by a German lawmaker, Snowden alluded to "the difficulties of this humanitarian situation," referring to the conditions of his Russian protection from U.S. extradition requests.

JERUSALEM -- Israel's Supreme Court on Monday tossed out a controversial law that allowed police to jail refugees and undocumented migrants for up to three years without trial, a key part of the government's recent crackdown against mostly African asylum seekers who had been flooding into the country. A panel of nine High Court judges ruled unanimously that the Law for Prevention of Infiltration -- which took effect in 2012 -- violated human rights. An estimated 2,000 asylum seekers, mostly from Eritrea and other African nations, are believed to be in Israeli detention facilities.